• Home
  • Archive
  • About
  • Awards & Media
  • Contact
    • Facebook
    • Pinterest
    • Twitter

Courting Destiny

  • Courting Classics
  • Fiction
  • Mainstream Media
  • New York Stories
  • My Parents
  • Mental Health
  • N. Myrtle Beach

Sign Up For My Weekly Newsletter!

A day or so

July 26, 2010 By pia

The temperature has fallen to a cool 81, and we’re having a thunderstorm. I answered that age old question I never knew I asked: “would I risk death by lightening to take the garbage trolley out of the yard, about 75 yards to the edge of the court where it will be picked up in the morning?” Apparently the answer is yes. Our garbage is picked up once a week and I had lots of half eaten containers of various salads of the mayonnaise variety.

I brought the cold cuts to a place not far from here where I know homeless people live. It felt as if I were doing something illegal as an organization likes to be the group to feed them but the New Yorker in me couldn’t just throw it out or bring it to a far away food bank when I don’t have a car, and am really feeling that lack right now.

I called my best friend, almost crying, and said that if there were a housing market I would put my house on the market though normally I love it here. She gave me an unsettling answer: “don’t you dare. It’s going to be worth a ton once the beaches further South go.”

That answer of course made me totally tear. I hope she’s wrong. Not that I don’t want my house to be worth at least what it was when I bought it plus the cost of the renovations but I can’t bear to think about what she said.

The day began horribly when I called the AC company as a vent sounded as if it were a jet way at Kennedy Airport. Well I didn’t know somebody closed the vent. I wouldn’t mind having paid the $80 (which I do think is excessive) if several months ago I hadn’t called to say that there was an AC leak and I smelled something more. The leak turned out to be condensation. The man said it was my fault because I had a door partially open and didn’t bother to look further. It smelt like mold and old people. I didn’t consciously think that the old people smells were from my childhood–and really my grandmother, of The Bronx, Miami Beach and Monticello–the woman didn’t have a cent to her name but she did live well and had a ton of mildewy suitcases I still can picture.

About a month ago, I brought some suitcases into the crawl space and discovered all the insulation falling off and tons of water. I had Eldon fix it and bought a dehumidifier which has been filling up with water every damn day. It’s good for my upper deck plants, the water that is. The company told me today that they would have paid for it then had I called.

Why do I listen to Eldon? He’s the king of passivity. Today I told him that it’s his responsibility to call the plumber to fix the shower that I spent way too much money on, can hardly use and it flooded due to the plumber both inventing a flood and fixing it wrong. Only cost $850 to fix. I wouldn’t use him to fix the shower but I’m so damn tired of spending money on this house.

Now of course Eldon’s angry at me. Not angry as much as wants nothing to do with me.

And sadly I both like him as a friend and need him for all the little things my friend’s husbands attempt to do, and for rides when I don’t want to call a friend or take a taxi. I can’t believe I live in a place where public transport doesn’t exist and isn’t a priority. You have no idea how infantilizing that is. There are buses to Charleston, but I’m going with a friend in the fall. Trains run from Marion or Florence (I get the women named towns confused.) Both are about an hour and a half from here, and Eldon said he would drive me if we have a hurricane. That and my huge closet that opens both into the bedroom and bathroom are my entire hurricane/tornado plans.

I don’t make a good dependent type person. Too ornery.

I haven’t been very productive for many reasons and I’m scared that I lost my will after all these years of wanting to do nothing but write. I’m joining a writing group that meets in the library. It’s been a long time,actually never, since I’ve been in a writing group where you don’t have to be selected.

My reality is that I find myself boring. I know the story. I need encouragement. I need a lot of things. It’s funny that I live at the beach and yet really feel that I need a couple of days just being at the beach–I go after everything else is done. I do love it this time of year though yesterday I began sweating when I walked into the water which was certainly strange and stranger since I’m the glisten not sweat type.

I have no idea where I’m going with this post. So encourage me to do other things such as be productive. Tell me you will buy a copy of the book though if you comment here you will probably get one because just because…..

Filed Under: north myrtle beach, Uncategorized Tagged With: A northerner moves to the south, north myrtle beach

« A diatribe
Prelude to a hurricane »

Comments

  1. Bone says

    July 26, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    King of passivity? Then what am I, a prince? 🙂

    We hit 100 here Saturday and Sunday. Hottest summer since 1914. (You may have spotted me quoting 1913 in other places around the blogosphere, but I found out today I was mistaken by a year.) I secretly love the hot, but have to act like I’m somewhat disgusted by it in certain company.

    Love that you have a crawl space. You know, that’s where Frank kept his Festivus pole.

    One of the most frequent complaints I hear anytime someone from outside the South visits is our non-walker friendly streets and the lack of public transportation. The other is our slow “fast food.”

  2. pia says

    July 27, 2010 at 8:13 am

    @Bone
    Uh I forgot about you Sir Bonehead. You’re a Prince yes though I’m sure the people who live near you have other things to say 🙂

    I actually walk stooped in my crawl space. It’s very big. And the palm on the upstairs deck that hated coming out of the sunroom and looked 3/4’s dead has been totally revived by dehumidifier water

    I keep suitcases there. They were beginning to smell musty. So I started imagining me as my grandmother–not a pretty sight or something I want in my memory bank

  3. TC says

    July 27, 2010 at 3:49 pm

    It’s a rule that if you read a blog and that blogger publishes a book that you buy it, right? If it’s not, it should be. 🙂

  4. Doug says

    July 29, 2010 at 11:22 am

    TC, I follow that rule. For Pia’s book, I’ll empty the store, though.

  5. cooper says

    July 29, 2010 at 6:46 pm

    Buy it, recommend it, sell it even….on street corners.

  6. sage says

    July 31, 2010 at 3:29 pm

    That’s the problem of home ownership… I’ve caught the train in Florence once–on a 3 day trip to Milford UT (the train no longer runs to Milford) via NY, Chicago, Salt Lake then the Desert Wind toward LA. It’s an overnight run to NYC.

Search for your favorite post!

Follow Me!

  • Facebook
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Sign up Now!

Sign up now and get my latest posts delivered right to your inbox!

About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

Categories

Archives

All material contained herewith is owned by Pia Savage, LLC

Copyright © 2021 Courting Destiny · Designed by Technology-Therapist